


comfort in routine

by shrack



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Married Life, Old Married Couple, thats it! thats literally it!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-06
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:55:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27423082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shrack/pseuds/shrack
Summary: A man appears in the newspaper three times in his life. Once when he’s born, once when he marries, and once when he dies.They're not supposed to give each other anniversary gifts, but Merlin surprises him, and Harry figures he should do something in return.
Relationships: Harry Hart | Galahad/Merlin
Comments: 5
Kudos: 22





	comfort in routine

**Author's Note:**

> For all intents and purposes, I am a TGC denier. The only thing in that movie that is relevant to the AU that this takes place in is that Harry’s whole return happened after Kentucky, and they have Statesman to thank. That’s it.

A man appears in the newspaper three times in his life. Once when he’s born, once when he marries, and once when he dies.

On a Thursday, a copy of The Sun gets thrown onto Harry’s desk. Merlin then goes to sit on the couch in the corner of his office.

“You know that’s a shit new source, right?” he says, elbows bracketed on his knees, leaning forward.

Harry reaches for it and unfolds the paper. “Force of habit,” he mutters, scanning over the front page before looking up at Merlin. “What is this?”

The front page is something about football that he doesn’t care remotely about. Merlin just quirks an eyebrow, signaling for Harry to continue on reading. Harry puffs out a breath and scans the front page some more. First, he glances past the date, paying it no mind, but his mind registers it a few beats after—the paper’s from twenty years ago, of this very day in November he remembers quite clearly. When he glances up and over the paper at Merlin, there’s a mischievous sparkle in his eye.

“You didn’t.”

“I might’ve.”

Sure enough, when Harry flips over to the nuptials section, in the smallest print there is, is two sentences announcing their marriage. Well, it’s not technically  _ their _ marriage from looking at it. It’s their most frequently used covers who have just, apparently, gotten married. Harry bites his bottom lip and smiles up at Merlin, and Merlin’s grinning back. His eyes sparkle with unshed tears, and he rubs his hands together.

“I knew it was important to you. And, nobody really reprints papers from two decades ago.”

“Don’t say that,” Harry chuckles. “makes us sound old.”

"We  _ are _ old. Been married for two decades. Practically as long as Eggsy's been alive."

Harry runs a thumb over the small nuptial announcement, before closing the paper up and setting it gently aside. "We don't do gifts.”

“Twenty years,” Merlin drawls, like he’s playing with the words in his mouth. Harry, too, can’t believe it either. “I thought it was the appropriate occasion.”

Harry sits back in his chair, leaned against the shoulder holsters that are slung along the back, as they ever are. There are routines that the two of them like. Merlin doesn’t have to be a gentleman and ask to take the seat in the corner of Harry’s office, hasn’t for over two decades. When they are together at work, the gentlemen within the two of them come back out, and Merlin would ask, despite knowing the answer. Every so often Merlin will take one of Harry’s hands. Not to hold, but to make sure there is still no shake in them, the shake that resided for months after Kentucky. When they tuck in for sleep, and Harry no longer bears the glasses that hide and protect his eye—or what’s left of it—Merlin cups his cheek and trails a thumb across Harry’s eyebrow, around as if to smooth out the crows feet that linger at the corner of his eye, the scar that bisects and blends with them. Merlin had asked if he wanted a new eye, once he was awake and back into his own, but Harry declined. This was a new part of him, whether he liked it or not. 

Merlin gets nightmares, sometimes. It’s almost laughable, to an extent, that he gets them and not Harry, who faces these people and ends their lives on a regular basis. Therapy doesn’t work on Merlin—or maybe he simply doesn’t let it help. So Merlin’ll jolt upright in the middle of the night, not knowing where he is, panting, shaking. And depending on how serious, Harry will wake up, cover Merlin’s body with his own, and remind him exactly where he is, who he is, the  _ good  _ he’s done for the world. There are routines, after all.

But, Harry’s a spontaneous guy.

He sucks his teeth and drums his fingers on his desk. “We should work from home on Saturday.”

Merlin smiles, slightly apologetic. “I have a meeting with Statesman after lunch.”

“On Saturday?”

“Aye. It appears they work just as hard as we do.”

“Can I convince you to go in late, then?”

Merlin’s eyebrows raise, his smile morphing into his cheeky little smirk. “I’m sure I can be swayed.”

When Harry wakes up on Saturday morning, Merlin’s still asleep. It’s rare, but not completely unheard of. The two of them tend to drift apart as they sleep; they might fall asleep close to one another, but more often than not, by morning, there’s a space between them, maybe a hand or foot outstretched to bridge that divide. Harry shifts closer to Merlin, whose back is facing Harry ( _ rude _ , but expected), and slips an arm around his waist with ease. Merlin prefers soft, matching pajama sets, which Harry never stops teasing him about, but he can’t deny that they’re incredibly comforting. He’s warm from sleep, and Harry tucks his nose into the crook of his neck and shuts his eyes once more. Merlin’s also fiercely loyal to brands, for skincare and soap and, way back when he still had hair, shampoo. It’s a smell that Harry relates to home, and every day it surprises him how it makes his heart thump happily against his ribs.

Merlin sleeps like the dead, and Harry finds himself drifting off again not soon after he’s moved closer. He only wakes up again when he feels Merlin shifting in his arms, and Harry grunts but releases his arm enough so Merlin can face him—he doesn’t have to open his eyes to know.

“Sorry,” he murmurs, the brogue always thicker in the morning, and Harry gives a lazy smile.

“What time is it?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Harry feels Merlin shift, and sure enough the hand on his cheek follows, thumb tracing a firm and familiar path around his eye.

Merlin falls quiet as he thinks. Harry doesn’t bother opening his eyes, lulled closer to sleep with the soft movements. He can feel Merlin’s eyes roaming over his face—maybe he can’t, but he knows that’s what he’s doing.

“We’ve been together longer than twenty years.”

Harry finally opens his eyes, and the soft look Merlin’s giving him never fails to catch his breath in his throat. He smiles. “It took us quite a while to decide to get married.”

“Not counting the ‘will they won’t they’ phase.”

Harry groans at the memory. The two of them were downright insufferable. He supposes it’s good that things finally worked out the way they did, otherwise some of the older associates at Kingsman probably would’ve killed them shortly thereafter.

“It scares me sometimes,” Merlin admits quietly, eyes flitting between both of Harry’s—a force of habit, tough to break.

“What does?”

Merlin’s jaw works for a moment, clearly searching for the right words in his sleep-addled brain. Harry presses impossibly closer, tangling their legs in the way they always do.

“I love you just as much as I did then,” he says slowly, not breaking eye contact, “Maybe more. Maybe differently, I’m not sure. But I worry that one day...that’ll stop. You’ll get tired of me, or I you, or something will happen—”

It’s Harry’s turn to cup Merlin’s cheek, and finally Merlin tears his gaze away, to look at the inside of Harry’s wrist. If Harry shifts his fingers down just a touch, right over Merlin’s carotid, he can feel his pulse race under his skin. 

“You’re not getting rid of me that easily, Hamish,” he whispers, and Merlin surges forward to kiss him.

It’s a dance they know well, yet Harry understands what Merlin means. It thrills him every time, and sometimes it worries Harry, too, that it still does—how long can that last? That happy, giddy feeling that Merlin brings with him, surely that can’t, shouldn’t, last forever. But it’s held steadfast, over twenty years of marriage, before that through most ten years of friendship and relationship. When Merlin pulls back and checks the clock, Harry knows what his anniversary gift is going to be.

* * *

As anticipated, Merlin gets hung up in the office until well after four, but tells Harry about when he is on his way home. He lets himself in at nearly five. Harry sits by the fireplace to the right of the door, the little nook with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, cluttered and yet comfortable. That could be Harry’s entire decor aesthetic right there, cluttered but comfortable. He’s reading a book, but mostly watching Merlin as he goes about his routine. Toe off his shoes, hang his jacket on a hook by the door. Head upstairs to rid himself of the day’s professional wear, although today he will most certainly only trade out the slacks for jeans and keep the sweater. A subtle transformation from Merlin to Hamish, although the two of them agree that his proper name feels a little bit silly around the edges.

He comes back down to grab his iPad off the dining room table, as he always does, and Harry smiles to himself when he pauses. Merlin spins around and holds the tickets up, as though Harry hasn’t seen them yet.

“What’s this, then?”

“Thought it would be nice to go back to Tuscany,” Harry says, setting his book aside, and Merlin cracks a smile.

“We don’t do gifts,” Merlin echoes Harry’s very words from Thursday back at him.

Harry hums and pretends to mull something over. Merlin’s watching him with an amused look in his eyes. “I thought we might renew our vows while we were there.”

Merlin’s eyes widen in surprise, and he looks down at the tickets once again. “We don’t have to go to Italy to do that, dear.”

Harry remains quiet as Merlin finishes his routine—he grabs the iPad, as he intended to do, and sits down next to Harry on the couch. He will poke and prod at work until they have to start cooking dinner, and then afterward as well. It’s near impossible to drag him away from it, but such is the life that they chose to lead all those years ago. Harry shifts to face Merlin on the couch, one knee tucked up and shin pressed along the outside of Merlin’s thigh.

“I want it to be special. It’s just going to be us, of course, but there’s a difference saying our vows together in the living room and saying them in Tuscany.”

Merlin rests his hand on Harry’s calf. “You’re a hopeless romantic.”

Harry grins. “Only for you, my dear.”

**Author's Note:**

> yeah, maybe i'm still thinking about merlahad in 2020. what about it.
> 
> my tumblr is shrack, if you wanna.


End file.
